Max, You're Doing a Great Job, it's Milford's Supervisors Who Are Wrong
The Free Press, December 4, 2003, With additional unedited text

         Chill out, Max Geisler. I'm on your side. I think your Concerned Citizens of Milford is doing an exemplary job of opposing the irradiator. I don't completely agree with your cause, but I admire the way you have carried it out. There is just so much stacked against you.

         Aside from the renegade few who took out their frustrations on the unrelated Clemens Market, you have been playing it by the book. You may not win, but you have fought the good food-fight, and proved that citizens can get out their message, and maybe even influence the mighty feds, without lies and uncivil disobedience.

         Which is why I was surprised to see your very long, and somewhat distorted, letter of November 13 attacking me for not being on board. True, in the battle of the nuclear scientists, you outrank me by a supernova. I was a conscientious objector when it came to dissecting an earthworm in ninth grade biology. I learned the periodic table of elements when there was only three. Physics to me is whatever I have learned from Star Trek. Beam me up, Maxie!

         But I don't even pretend to have a scientific medula oblongata. I am a social observer. With a law background. What is "right", or who is "wrong", is often a matter of perspective. So I just follow what the legal and nuclear experts tell me. The real problem occurs when those experts themselves do not follow the laws, like the Milford supervisors. More later.

         See, Max, it isn't me who says that your scientific proof is inadequate. It's those experts, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Atomic Licensing Board. Your letter made it clear that you have some credentials in the field. I'll accept them at face value. But my guess is that there are dozens, yea verily hundreds of Max Geislers running around the various governmental agencies dealing with the construction and licensing of the irradiator. They all are armed with pockets full of pens, and heads full of complex equations. And all have scientific backgrounds similar to you. Maybe greater. You are advocating for your cause, and I can't argue the science. But it seems that you are outranked, and outvoted, by people who DO have the required technical backgrounds.

         It is their opinion, not mine, that the irradiator is safe. But I don't need a degree from MIT, or a lecture on irradiated food, to know the bottom line. CFC Logistics has been granted approval to operate. My brain will never be big enough to understand the why's. But, least for now, CFC is OK to GO. And on what basis was that approval granted? Because CFC followed the rules. They built what they were told would be licensed, they complied with all of the requirements for safety, and after the necessary inspections they got their permit.

         Max, it seems like your argument isn't with CFC, it's with the NRC. If the rules aren't adequate, they should be revised. But don't punish the people who followed those rules. We have decided, as a society, that we will accept less than 100% safety and certainty in our lives. We have scads of permitting, testing, and licensing procedures in many fields. Buildings, from sheds to skyscrapers, require those official papers. Sometimes there are mistakes, witness the parking garage in Atlantic City. We don't react by banning construction. Automobiles must meet crash test standards, but even with the thousands of traffic deaths every year, we still churn out cars. Prescription drugs require an eon of testing for FDA approval, but there are frequently dangerous side-effects. Cigarette smoking kills, but don't even whisper FDA in North Carolina.

         So if we accept the death rate in other industries, what should we do about an irradiator? You wrote in general terms about some cleanups, but I can't remember any fatalities in the United States being linked directly to a nuclear facility of any kind. While no one should doubt the potential for disaster under certain rare circumstances, it seems like one of the safest industries we have. With the hundreds of nukes dotting our landscape, zero deaths sounds like an excellent record. I'm not in love with nuclear power, but perhaps the NRC is doing SOMETHING right.   

         The plant is up and running in Milford because society has spoken. People don't seem to care that their food is irradiated. If they refuse to buy it, processors would refuse to irradiate it, and CFC's cobalt would be in the red. I don't doubt your statements about irradiation not being a cure-all, but it seems to do the job well enough, and safely enough, for consumers to accept it. We may all be misguided fools, but don't blame CFC. If the process is dangerous, or inadequate, it is the rules that need to be changed. But so far, that score is FDA Foodgeeks 1, CCM Protestors 0.

         Max, the evidence, and the experts, are lined up against you. But it is still possible that you are correct. And if you are, we all will owe you a tremendous debt, perhaps our lives. That it why I am on your side. Maybe that one last look by the NRC, brought on by the persistence of CCM, will turn up something that was missed. And it will be doubly to your credit that you worked within the system to bring about the change.

         However, the same can not be said for the Milford Board of Supervisors, and THAT was the point I tried to make a month ago. They were wrong in their actions, and wrong in the example they set. Judge Biehn made it clear that they acted improperly, tried to change the rules on CFC after the fact, and violated proper zoning procedures. They even ignored   the advice of their own township manager and solicitor. As a result, they accomplished nothing but to spend the taxpayer's money in futile legal action. And they still have not revealed the cost to the residents. Max, you may not win, but you've been Milford's best example of how to play the game.